The Modern Journalist

Here’s My Social Media. Eat It.

I’m a big believe in lifestreaming and technology as a new form of storytelling, and more importantly, as a new way to inform people about what it happening (as well as a new way to develop interactive storytelling techniques).

One of the downsides with social media is that hiccups occurring as we all try to figure out how this is going to play out. Right now, there are two major issues: either the social media sites are not connected, forcing people to continually update in multiple places; or the networks are statically linked together, creating a meme where the same update goes out across multiple networks (to the same friends who are probably subscribed).

Ariel Waldman has a great take on this phenomenon.

For our interests, though, it’s important to note that social media is changing the ways we can tell stories. As my buddy Dave posted on The Modern Journalist listserv:

So newswriters—tell me about a manhunt for a robber across a map. Twitter what’s going across the police radio. Let me chat with others following the story as it reaches my part of town.